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Life's A Ball
Devotional for Wednesday, August 20, 1997 by Jane McLaren
In my work with victims of child sexual abuse I have come to see life as a ball - a fragile, beautiful, glass ball. So many people have entrusted their lives to people who have not seen the fragility, the beauty, the need to be protected. For them it is as if their life literally was a glass ball that was carelessly or wilfully thrown against the wall, shattering into hundreds of pieces. For the rest of their childhood and it may seem, the rest of their lives, they are constantly searching the pieces of their fragmented past, trying vainly to put them back together to re-create the beauty of the glass ball. Yet, when all seems well and the ball is almost complete, a gentle bump is enough to re-shatter the pieces so tenuously held together.If you are one of these people whose life seems shattered, whose past is in fragments, whose present cuts quick with splintered pain, then know that God has a plan for you. He is not asking you to search out the pieces. He is not requiring you to put your life back together. Instead He is waiting for you to give to Him the pieces of your life that you are holding - those precious fragments that are all you are - the broken pieces of your heart.In His hands God can and will re-shape the glass, melting it down to liquid, gently and slowing blowing new life, new form, new beauty into it. In His hands your life is held, precious, secure, protected. In His hands your heart can mend, your wounds can heal, His hope can grow and His love can flow.
I have seen many people broken-hearted, lost, hopeless, hurting from within. I have seen these same people leaning on and walking with the Lord, growing in His love, becoming a fresh work of His art, letting Him shape their lives back into the beauty of grace and hope.
2 Corinthians 12:9 - And He has said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness."
2 Corinthians 5:17 - Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come.
Prayer: Lord God, in my brokenness I kneel before You knowing that Your grace truly is sufficient for me. Father, I confess that I have tried to re-build my own life and acknowledge that I cannot do this. I give to You the pieces of my life, the fragments of my heart, and I trust You to take them and shape my life anew. I honour You today as El Shaddai, my all sufficient God, and thank You Lord for Your grace and Your hope. Amen.
Jane McLaren <janemcl@cnwl.igs.net>
Cornwall, Ontario, Canada
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Today's Music:
Come Thou Fount Of Every Blessing.